


unnamed, i guess

by limerent



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, and catra being frustrating, just adora being kind of sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24806857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limerent/pseuds/limerent
Summary: tiny sad catradora-ish thingdo they call these ficlets? a ficlet, then
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	unnamed, i guess

Even worse than the dreams where she’s ripping my face off are the ones where she’s curled up at the foot of my bed. I wake up and the ceiling is staring down at me, pearlescent, and every instinct I have is telling me that something is wrong. I wriggle out of the tangle of sheets, bare feet on the cool, translucent floor. It takes half an hour of pacing the room until I realise the only reason I’m on edge is I’m used to hearing her breathing.

I remember the last time I slept alone, before all this — we’d snuck out, scaled the side of the barracks and watched the sun set over the Fright Zone. Sunsets there were redder than violence, streaking scarlet across the sky. So beautiful your breath would catch, every time. When Shadow Weaver caught us, she told us that the colour of the sunset was just because of all the pollution… then she dragged Catra off to sleep in a cupboard somewhere because ‘clearly, the two of you can’t be trusted together’.

Maybe that doesn’t count as the last time I slept alone, because I don’t think I slept at all.

Funny that missing her only makes me more frustrated — how could she choose the Fright Zone, a lifetime of orders, just a cog in a machine that only knows destruction — over this? Over pancakes and hugs and magic (and a war we can’t win). Over me.

Looking around, it’s like I’ve stepped into a fairytale. Muted jewel tones, soft furnishings. Artfully draped plants. The early morning sun slips through the windows and every wall is shimmering. Clearly, this place had a better interior designer than the Fright Zone, but… it’s hard to feel at home anywhere she isn’t.

-

Seeing her in battle is almost nice. Right up until the part where she kicks me in the stomach, that is. _What are we doing,_ I want to ask her. _What are we doing to each other? This isn’t a story, Catra. It’s real life. People don’t have archenemies. And even if they do… you don’t have to be mine._

In the end, it’s easier to let the sword do the talking. To imagine, for a second, that this is all pretend — that we’re training like we used to, a hall full of glittering holograms and sweat, Shadow Weaver barking commands as our aching limbs remember how to brace, dodge, leap. My guard lowers for a second and she strikes; four lines of agony across my cheek. The memories crumple. Catra never trained with her claws out.

Every fight merges into one, eventually. Catra aiming her smirk like a missile, the countless “hey, Adora”s, skidding over rock or sand or ice — tired of it all, and with every punch my frustration crystallises further into hatred. I could probably beat her, now. I guess I’m not really trying. I move to strike her and all I can see is Catra, age 7, huddled behind storage crates as I promised her I’d always be on her side. When she got mad, she’d lash out, even then.

Traveling back to the palace, I always wonder if she’s as tired of this as I am.

-

You’d think, after we’d fixed ancient tech and flown through space to find her with pupil-less eyes and braindead, detached the chip from her nervous system and risked our lives to get her back home, she’d be a little more grateful. But nothing’s changed — still all sarcastic quips and sulking, facing the wall curled up on her mattress and hating the world.

I guess I was naive. I thought maybe we could forget all this — that we’d step off the spaceship and the tension would evaporate under a familiar sun. That, unspoken, she’d curl up at the end of the bed again and we’d fix the world together.

But nothing changed. If anything, she’s more prickly now — livewire, dangerous, something manic behind her two-tone eyes. It makes sense that she would hate being indebted to anyone… especially me. When she uncurls from her shadowed corner, pads out of the tent, it’s not exactly a surprise. I follow her.

In the forest, it never seems to be quite daylight. Instead, the place hovers in a perpetual dusk, or maybe dawn — the moment the light changes, but it never gives way to sun or moon. The air is always thick with magic, hazy lilac and the smell of electricity. She stands out against the foliage, the trees that sway slightly to a beat I can’t hear. Spotlit in some strange light that comes from everywhere and nowhere at once.

I ask her not to go, but she doesn’t listen.


End file.
